


I've Been Waiting For The Sun

by RisingShadows



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, More fluff everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23323696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisingShadows/pseuds/RisingShadows
Summary: Tom Blake joins the war effort. Tom Blake falls very much in love.
Relationships: Tom Blake & William Schofield, Tom Blake/William Schofield
Comments: 6
Kudos: 63





	I've Been Waiting For The Sun

Tom enlists with a wide smile and the knowledge that what he’s doing is right. That his brother is already fighting. That he’ll help end this war. 

When he enlists his mother cries, Tom isn’t sure he’s ever seen her cry, but that night she holds him in her arms as she always did when he was sad, or ill, or hurt. She cries and he knows he’s doing what’s right. He knows even if it hurts her, he’ll come home.

It isn’t long before his hopes are shattered, one soldier is no great help. One more soldier will not end this war. One more soldier is simply more cannon fodder for officers to throw at the German front line in the hope one will get through. (Tom knows that isn’t right, his brother is an officer, no soldier is expendable under his command, but with others, he wonders.) 

It isn’t long before Tom meets another soldier, a Lance Corporal by the name of William Schofield. 

Tom has never known a man quite like Schofield. And well, he’d like to explain away his interest, to hide it as nothing more than a passing thing inspired by boredom. He knows in the end that he can’t.

Schofield draws him in a way he can’t quite explain, like a moth to a flame. Although Tom’s fairly certain he doesn’t need to worry about being burnt. He’s far more worried about being the one to hurt the other. Something about him had always seemed fragile. 

Tom usually chalked it up to loss, to the quiet grief in Scho’s eyes and the way he seemed almost to drift sometimes. To forget what was happening around him as he slipped away. Tom thought it may have been memories, but the way he seemed to shake out of it occasionally reminded him more of a nightmare.

As if the grief the other had endured had taken a physical form and haunted his footsteps. Like old fairy tales his mother had told him as a child at her knee. 

He liked to think that he could pull him out of those moments, that they were fewer after he started following the older Lance Corporal around. That every time he drew a smile or a laugh from him he was one step closer to unraveling the enigma that was the older man. 

And that he had forced that fairy tale monster back one more step, just far enough for the other to catch his breath. To fortify himself against whatever would come next and offer Tom that slightest of glances past the walls the other man built around himself. 

It was a fanciful way of thinking, but Tom had spent weeks trailing behind the other and stories were what he did when he was bored. He liked to think that all of this was one great fairy tale. That one day they’d make it home (the heroes always did after all).

Scho probably would’ve called it foolish. A naive thought to consider them heroes of anything. 

Scho was rather blunt like that. Unwilling to hold to any lies someone might tell themselves, and Tom had seen him tear quite a few fool hardy Privates down with it. On the front there were no heroes. Not like the stories.

And then they were the ones playing hero. Racing against the clock to save 1600 men, Tom’s brother among them and it sounded just like the stories his mom had told him as bedtime stories as a kid. 

Tom had hated it. The fear of failure, the pressure at just how many men would die if they failed. If they themselves died. 

Scho had pushed on, had complained only once moments after he had been buried under stone and Tom had thought he had lost him. Before he’d told him anything, before he’d even fully admitted it to himself. (He thinks that was when he realized exactly how he felt for the other man.)

And they’d made it . Made it just in time to race through the trenches as the first wave went over. Just in time to fail. 

And then they hadn’t. It had taken longer than it should have for Tom to realize what Scho had risked for him. What he’d done to complete Tom’s mission where Tom had thought they had already failed. 

And Tom had decided then and there that when this war ended he’d drag the other home. Home to meet his mother, and see the cherry trees behind his house. His mom would probably think the other man was too thin. 

Tom himself wouldn’t argue and would smile along while hoping his mom hadn’t figured out exactly what he thought of the other man from all those letters he’d sent her talking about him. 

They’d mostly been stories about what the two got up to when it was slow. Hopefully she’d chalk them up to his usual stories and leave it at that. It wasn’t like he hadn’t told stories about other men. 

There were just a lot less of them. It wasn’t like anyone else was nearly as interesting. 

It’s months later before he gets the chance to drag the other soldier home with them. They first time either of them have had leave since and Tom wastes exactly none of it. 

His mother drags him to the kitchen with a kind smile for Scho and a hand on his shoulder just long enough to complain to him that Scho is far too thin. Tom agrees without hesitation already reaching out to pull her into a hug as she laughs at him. 

Pushing him back towards the sitting room with a small smile. He hesitates at that, the secretive tilt to her lips as she watches him, continuing to shoo him away as he hesitates. 

“Are you going to leave your friend to his own devices while I ready dinner?”

Tom sputters even as he follows her direction. Dropping down to sit on the small couch beside him before he even considers the chairs around the room. It’s even more embarrassing when he feels his cheeks grow warm. Blush spreading all the way to his ears when Scho looks over at him for a moment. Pulling his eyes away from the window and the sun dipping below the cherry trees behind his house. 

It isn’t a well planned decision when he reaches out to tug the other to his feet. Dragging him out the door with only a half-hearted call to his mother to let her know where they were heading. 

Behind him Scho doesn’t struggle, doesn’t pull his hand free even though he could. Tom wouldn’t stop him. And he knows the other would follow him if he did let go. 

There’s something grounding about the other’s hand in his, as he turns just enough to see his face. Searching for what he isn’t sure at first. 

Not until he doesn’t find it. The quiet grief that usually hides in the others expression gone. Replaced with a quiet wonder Tom’s never seen from him. Not in all the months they’ve known each other. A half-smile slowly pulling at the older man’s lips as they draw to a halt.

Scho’s hand tightening around his instead of pulling free. 

If anyone were to ask, Tom would say that was when he’d realized it. 

When he’d looked over at the other, blue eyes filled with that quiet wonder, hair gold in the dying sunlight. 

He’d nearly forgotten his own restraint. Nearly leaned over to press his lips to the others. 

It wouldn’t have mattered if he had, not when the other turned to him at that moment and leaned in himself. 

Tom met William Schofield in the trenches of a war he hadn’t understood. 

He liked to tell people he fell in love with him beneath the tree’s of his childhood home. 

Lit by the dying sunlight with cherry blossoms falling like snow. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at midnight everyone, if there are any mistakes I am so sorry. I am tired and dumb and should be sleeping...
> 
> This is so not my best work.


End file.
